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IndianExpress:  SITTING in a cramped room, 20-odd people are attending a training programme on injection moulding process. Adjacent to it, some technicians are glued to their computers checking out designs of auto components while others are testing and validating products that have come in from Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Nashik, Kolhapur and Satara. In a large unoccupied area, huge wooden crates containing the environment testing chamber lies unopened. Welcome to the country’s first-ever Auto Cluster Development and Research Institute Ltd (ACDRIL).

From a design, testing, calibration and validation centre that is functional from a rented premises, the ACDRIL will soon start operating its environmental testing chamber and rapid prototyping before it moves to its own 10-acre campus by April next year.

IndianExpress:  THE water woes for residents staying under the jurisdiction of the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) seems to be an unending affair. If earlier it was vegetables and clothes that flowed through their taps, this time it is the cattle waste that is being supplied to them.

For the past couple of days, residents of New Modikhana have been getting turbid and contaminated water and in spite of repeated complaints, the PCB has refused to attend to it. Though the PCB has blamed the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) for supplying contaminated water, the real culprit is the non-implementation of the Model Sewage Project by the cantonment board.

IndianExpress: THIS year the monsoon in Lonavla was a dampener. A favourite getaway for scores of tourists from Mumbai, Pune and even Gujarat, the hill station that is usually chock-a-block with people all through the monsoon, witnessed a steep 50 per cent drop in tourist figures this season. Surprisingly, this drop in figures has been the lowest in the last decade.

‘‘Usually, Lonavla witnesses minimum 50,000 tourists on any given weekend. Independence Day is usually big since we have people coming from Mumbai and Pune in large numbers. However, this time there were just about 20,000 people. The roads, that are generally blocked with people during the monsoon season, were hardly crowded,’’ says Lonavla Municipal Corporation administrative officer Ashok Jadhav.

IndianExpress:  FORGET about counsellors, child rights activists and NGO’s. When it comes to their problems, children from the city want to take matters into their own hands. Under the aegis of ‘Pune Childline’, children from various schools, remand homes and other institutions across the city, have come together to form ‘Balsena’ — a group dedicated to fight all forms of injustice against children and campaign for their rights.

The seeds for the Balsena were sown at a Child Participation Programme organised by the Child India Foundation on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. Here children interacted with parents, teachers, police, government officials, as well as Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) and rickshaw drivers and aired their grievances.

IndianExpress: THIS Ganesh festival, darshan of the Shrimant Dagadusheth Halwai Ganapati Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandal idol will be easy. Reason- the mandal — one of the most prestigious in the city — has decided to install closed circuit TV (CCTV) in the vicinity of its pandal.

The decision was taken after the police appealed to the Ganesh mandals to use CCTVs in the vicinity of pandals during the 10-day mega festival.
 
The appeal was made out of safety concern in the wake of the blasts that took place in Mumbai on July 7. The installation of the CCTV is expected to reduce the crowd at the pandal.